FFXI Plot-holes and unclear issues

[Rocl]

The original VNMs seemed to be from the Abyssea reality. (Anagram of the guy's name is ABYSSEA MAIN, etc.) Abyssean VNMs are most assuredly from the Abyssea reality as well, apparently they know the secret of invisibility. Walk of Echoes NMs are apparently Atomos sorting his food, and VWNMs seem to be left intentionally vague, but I'd wager they're from Lilith's reality or a brand new one. My reasoning for this, is that with the Cait Sith, it can't be our reality. I feel like we would have seen a Cait Sith in Abyssea had they cared about the story at all (they didn't), especially considering it ruined all of Altana's muckery at the end of CoP. I wouldn't be surprised if Voidwalkers weren't just Atomos' dinings spilling over into our reality? Our reality gets fucking shit on regularly, jesus christ.

Also, stop making Moogles important. It was cute in A Moogle Kupo d'Etat, but introducing Kupofried as a legitimate Voidwalking entity is fucking GUUUH.

I like the idea of Voidwatch enemies being intimately connected with Walk of Echoes, because that's like the only other place you get monsters from every expansion. (That I can think of off the top of my head, oh and Abyssea-- fuck.) Whatever, I think Walk of Echoes is gnarly.

Oh! I also wanted to point out the confusion about Alexander's protocrystal. I don't know if people hold the same retarded theorycraft as myself, but I am fairly certain there is no white dot in the sky to signify the Gordeus star, right? We know that the Gordeus star went supernova, which began the Tarutaru Crystal Era calendar. I like to think the actual protocrystals are these dots/stars in the sky. The protocrystals we see, cannot truly be the places we enter to fight the Celestials, yeah? So I like to imagine that at 0 C.E. Odin had a decisive blow against Alexander and fucked him up beyond repair. I can never remember Alzadaal's reign though, because if Alzadaal's reign was more than ~1000 years ago, that shits all over the theory that Odin destroyed the Cloister of Light, and therefore Alexander's true body. (Assuming he ever had one.)

There are giant holes in this, re: Odin's protocrystal of Darkness being shattered. Also how the fuck did Odin conscript Luzaf and ride out to fight Alexander before his crystal was shattered? (Assuming it was Madeline or w/e's song that did it? I thought the Lay of Immortals, if sung, returned the Mothercrystals or some shit or broke them. God knows with the end of A Crystalline Prophecy it's fuck all important because a magic talking crystal can appear from another dimension and say your reality isn't real enough.) They must have been awakened before the first Ragnarok, but gaaaah, what woke them? Who knows this shit is boring, make another expansion please.

Or let us do something more interesting like time travel in Aht Urhgan if you're gonna re-use content. Seeing Aht Urhgan conquer Al Zhabi would be pretty baller. (Also where the fuck did Aht Urhgan come from? It fights the Far East, who is Tenzen/Gessho, and I was certain Al Zhabi was something taken over/recently built by them west of their main city, and is our 'Near East.' So, like The Mid-East? Goddamn terrorists. Northern Arajidah? Southern Arajidah? I feel really gypped there's an entire continent we've set foot on but only seen less than half. I mean, I'm right pissed about the other continents we've never even seen, but Arajidah makes me the angriest. I guess they can't be assed to figure out how to fit all the Gessho/Tenzen variables in for the Far East, as both of them would certainly come to your aid. Assuming they're not dickbags.

They're dickbags. Goddamn Sendoh.)

[Sagacious Sundi]

Yeah, Al Zahbi was originally Ephramad's capital until about 200 years ago, when it was destroyed while Luzaf was away in Bastok. (Incidentally, it was 200~ years ago when Count Bifrons made his little deal with Schultz, a Bastoker. And Count Bifrons and Ephramad both have ties to Odin, whom we all know likes to be involved in all of FFXI's plots. Coincidence?)

I figure Gessho and Tenzen's nation(s) are on islands (probably Japan-esque), and Aht Urhgan's eastern half comprises most of eastern Aradjiah.

[Odin'sLaw]

Outside Voidwalkers are supposed to be Abyssean in nature, iirc. As for the ones inside, whenever you pick up a clear abyssite the NPC mentions some fiends choosing to hide so you find them with the Abyssite. They could be VNMs that were going to cross over, and we got them preemptively.

I'd prefer to think of it as a weak area in time and space and when you go near the spawn point the 3rd dimension (abyssea) just so happens to be where the NMs congregate and drags them through to our current time space dimension and what ever else it could be

[Gwynplaine]

Or let us do something more interesting like time travel in Aht Urhgan if you're gonna re-use content. Seeing Aht Urhgan conquer Al Zhabi would be pretty baller. (Also where the fuck did Aht Urhgan come from? It fights the Far East, who is Tenzen/Gessho, and I was certain Al Zhabi was something taken over/recently built by them west of their main city, and is our 'Near East.' So, like The Mid-East? Goddamn terrorists. Northern Arajidah? Southern Arajidah? I feel really gypped there's an entire continent we've set foot on but only seen less than half. I mean, I'm right pissed about the other continents we've never even seen, but Arajidah makes me the angriest. I guess they can't be assed to figure out how to fit all the Gessho/Tenzen variables in for the Far East, as both of them would certainly come to your aid. Assuming they're not dickbags.

Yep, Aht Urghan more recently had conquered Al Zahbi and absorbed it its empire. If you look at the map they use in one of the cutscenes you can see what appears to be borders for the cities. Al Zahbi to the left and the proper part of Aht urghan expanding to the right.

[Odin'sLaw]

this game could be so huge but no SE and its small area's~

[Sagacious Sundi]

Thinking about it, Abyssea isn't just "timeline where you lose CoP," right? The fact that the planet has a completely different name is the major indicator, but there's also stuff like Curilla's eye backstory.

Which just raises the question of who thought Abyssea was a good name for their world. Maybe something to do with abyssites?

[Kaisha]

Something that's been bugging me for awhile: Why does every NPC refer to Vana'diel as Abyssea in the Abyssea plot/zones?

Is the planet just plain called that instead of Vana'diel in that reality, or did they just uniformly decided "Hey our planet is fucked, let's rename it!" ?

[Gwynplaine]

It could be it's just something they did for the sake of plot clarity.

[Spira]

most likely for plot clarity..

as for the voidwalker voidwatch thing, i'm pretty sure voidwalkers were meant to be a prelude to abyssea..
Assai Nybaem = I am abyssean. lol

But for voidwatch it isnt as simple as that. both cait and kupo still dont know where they come from, even in part II cutscenes..
so its highly unlikely its Abyssea at all.

as for abyssite. its just the name of a bunch of stones. plus the name reference only exists in the EN version i believe. They're just called jade in japanese.

[Septimus]

most likely for plot clarity..

as for the voidwalker voidwatch thing, i'm pretty sure voidwalkers were meant to be a prelude to abyssea..
Assai Nybaem = I am abyssean. lol

But for voidwatch it isnt as simple as that. both cait and kupo still dont know where they come from, even in part II cutscenes..
so its highly unlikely its Abyssea at all.

as for abyssite. its just the name of a bunch of stones. plus the name reference only exists in the EN version i believe. They're just called jade in japanese.

To be fair, Assai Nybeam also works out to "A Seamy Basin." He could be from a sordid washtub.

[Priran]

I'd just like to say, lolbifrons

[Ratatapa]

Ok can someone help me understand what the fuck is with louverance in COP

When you start COP you meet up with someone named Louverance with a red mask.

Later there is another louverance with a purple mask that call the red one fake.

blah blah COP happens

At the end of COP the both louverance makes a shodown and the purple one wins and the red one supposly dies (when you go back to sandy the cleric tells you that louverance said that he wouldn't be dead if you didn't fail his trap in carpender's landing)

But in the final final COP Cs you see a louverance with red mask in misareau Cost and there is another elf that cross him with a doublet then stops and look at him like he was him or w/e and they do a kind of spotlight on the 'new' red mask louverance.

So w/e happened there

[Gwynplaine]

I'm rusty but this is all I remember.
The real Louverance was some royalty of some noble sandoria house. The fake one was some thief who was part of Fontairemont's band or some shit like that. iirc this group of theives was explained elsewhere in totally seperate cop or THF AF quests. The fake one was posing as him, then faked his death at the end. Why? I don't know.

What I know is that it was not integrated into the story well, or explained well, and it had nothing to do with the theme of CoP. It was stupid.

[Ratatapa]

Found this blog, explains a bit

http://ffxicutscenes.blogspot.com/20...ouverance.html

[Gwynplaine]

Found this blog, explains a bit

http://ffxicutscenes.blogspot.com/20...ouverance.html

Yeah that sounds right to me.

TL;DR
Whole subplot is pointless to CoP and its theme and presented poorly.

[Sagacious Sundi]

Do they ever explain if golems are natural or artificial? Given the way they look in comparison to dolls/etc., I'm inclined to think they're just natural crystalline entities that grew in Fei'Yin/Ro'Maeve/Tu'Lia due to millennia of neglect. On a related subject, Delkfutt was where Eald'narche and pals were in stasis, right? That's why it's in better condition than other cermet areas?

Oh, and why are there magic pots in Garlaige? Did the Tarus or Elvaan make them long ago? Then why don't we have friggin' hovercarts in the present? Yeah yeah, it's a vanilla area so the answer is probably "they didn't have the lore mapped out yet, they just had an enemy model and wanted to put it places."

And I forgot, was it concluded that Olduum was likely just an offshoot Kuluu civilization? IIRC, Shantotto says Aydeewa is even older than Horutoto.

[Kaisha]

On a related subject, Delkfutt was where Eald'narche and pals were in stasis, right? That's why it's in better condition than other cermet areas?

It was in better condition because it's the main tower that monitors and controls the flow of the crystal line. They couldn't risk it getting harmed.

Well, that and they needed it to be in sound condition to restore power to Tu'Lia to continue their goal of opening the gate to paradise.

[Spira]

probably the most detailed page on Atarefaunet i've ever seen.

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Atarefaunet

he's who you think is Louverance through most of CoP.

[Septimus]

Do they ever explain if golems are natural or artificial? Given the way they look in comparison to dolls/etc., I'm inclined to think they're just natural crystalline entities that grew in Fei'Yin/Ro'Maeve/Tu'Lia due to millennia of neglect. On a related subject, Delkfutt was where Eald'narche and pals were in stasis, right? That's why it's in better condition than other cermet areas?

Oh, and why are there magic pots in Garlaige? Did the Tarus or Elvaan make them long ago? Then why don't we have friggin' hovercarts in the present? Yeah yeah, it's a vanilla area so the answer is probably "they didn't have the lore mapped out yet, they just had an enemy model and wanted to put it places."

And I forgot, was it concluded that Olduum was likely just an offshoot Kuluu civilization? IIRC, Shantotto says Aydeewa is even older than Horutoto.

Well, since Golems are arcana, they are not "natural" in the same way as beasts or aquans. It doesn't mean that they were created by the Zilart or by some other race, but magic was somehow responsible for their creation. (We don't really have a good explanation of bombs as far as I can recall.) Most of the cermet areas (except Fei'Yin) are in pretty decent shape. Sky is a bit over-grown with the vines breaking through into the inner areas, but it doesn't look like it is about to crumble apart; which is pretty impressive for 10,000 year old ruins.

The magic pots in Garlaige may be there because of Crystal Line that runs over it or the Strange Apparatus, but I think that we are just going to have to chalk it up to "A Zilart did it."

The Olduum thing is a giant plot thread that was probably (hopefully) going to be explained later but they never got around to it. It is a pretty big thread, to casually mention "those people that you thought had the oldest civilization, there may have been something before that." They could easily say that it is an early Zilart settlement from before they invented cermet and before the Kuluu existed, but explaining it in-game would be great.

[Sagacious Sundi]

I was going to say bombs (& its subspecies) are most likely underworld flames, due to them usually appearing in areas related to Odin and/or Hades (Uleguerand, Northlands [S], Hazhalm, Halvung), but then I realized CoP clusters kinda throw a wrench in that idea. Maybe it could still work...Tavnazia does get dark weather for some reason. Or maybe they're just sparks of magical energy, with Tavnazian clusters being born of wyrm breath/Cape Riverne's spatial disturbance or something.